There is a
Yiddish word, Chutzpah, which means “Impudence so outstanding as to
command admiration”.

In David’s
Greville Street days I ran into an attractive French lady who, like
David, had a shop in Greville Street. She told me that one Sunday
David had taken her for a drive in the Dandenongs. It was about 3:00
in the afternoon. They felt hungry and stopped at a country store
advertising sandwiches. The shopkeeper said they only sold
sandwiches between 12 and 2:00 Unperturbed by this, David purchased
a loaf of bread, some butter and some ham. He asked the shopkeeper
for the loan of a knife which he was given. He then proceeded to
prepare ham sandwiches on the shop counter. He gave the guy his
knife back, and they went on their way. The French lady said she had
never seen anyone do anything like that in France.

That was
David.

Chutzpah!

I first
met David in the Ref at Uni in1967. We got together and wrote a
couple of scripts for the Uni Revue. We sparked off one another and
I liked to think we were one of those great comic teams like Pete
and Dud. Well maybe.

Then we
shared a flat. It was at 37 Elizabeth Street in what is now the
Mall. It was on the top floor above a ladies hairdresser and a
delicatessen called The Pantry. It was known far and wide as “The
Pantry Flat”.

This was
the era of the musical “Hair” and Sergeant Pepper. This was the era
of 10 o’clock closing and after-the-pub parties. It was a great flat
for parties because there were no neighbours to complain about the
noise. Back then the Hobart CBD was deserted at nights and
weekends.

At
weekends Kerry used to hitch down from Campbell Town or St Mary’s or
wherever she was teaching.

Finally
David married Kerry and moved to the Mainland and got a real job.
First in Millicent SA and then in Canberra and finally in Sydney
where he and Kerry had an establishment rather similar to the Pantry
Flat, just off Oxford Street. I remember staying there one Saturday
night when it was packed with genial Irish folk singers.

For the
next several decades David seemed to oscillate between Melbourne and
Sydney. In the early 70’s he had an alternative bookshop in Greville
Street, Prahran. It was called “Toad Hall”. At this time Greville
Street was the Haight-Ashbury of Victoria’s hippy movement.
Unfortunately hippies are not big spenders and Toad Hall struggled
as did its competitor “Heffelump” across the road. Finally Heffelump
and Toad Hall joined forces and moved to Commercial Road next to the
Prahran Market.

Sales
immediately quadrupled.

It was
about this time that David moved back to Sydney and established a
bookshop in Walker Street specializing in computer-related books.
Ultimately he ran Apple Computer agencies.

His Walker
Street bookshop was doing so well he decided to open a second shop,
this time in the new Jam Factory development, also in Prahran in
Melbourne. When he came down from Sydney from time to time he would
visit us in Elwood where we then lived. I remember one occasion
when, late one night we hopped in my car to go over to Fitzroy
Street to get a pizza and were pulled over by the police. I was
driving the car, but David, usually a law abiding sort of chap,
decided to take over negotiations with the constabulary. I vividly
remember the following exchange:

Unfortunately he said “Sergeant Smith” so sarcastically that the
good sergeant took umbrage and sent David off to spend a night in
the cells of the St Kilda lock-up. They let me go home and I picked
him up at 6:00 am the next morning. No charges were laid.

His Jam
Factory bookshop was a disaster. The young couple he had put in to
manage it turned out to be heroin addicts. A couple of decades later
another business of his also failed disastrously when he re-hired a
former employee he felt sorry for. This guy had just finished 6
months in Long Bay Gaol. David’s entire stock of computers was
cleaned out early one morning. Both businesses failed for a similar
reason – David’s generosity – his propensity for helping lame dogs
over styles, his misplaced trust.

He was not
really a good businessman. He was too generous, too imaginative
perhaps. I think he missed his true vocation. He loved organizing
events, organizing openings, displays, parties, art exhibitions. He
should have been a professional party organizer.

But what
we all remember and loved about David was his vitality. Even in
these last dreadful months he managed to keep his pecker up and
front up at parties and events and meetings of his Constitution
Society.